Iran pressures Iraq officials to crack down on opposition group

Iran Focus: London, Jul. 19 – Iranian authorities have put pressure on Iraqi officials to crack down on the main Iranian opposition group, the People’s Mojahedin Organisation of Iran (PMOI), dissidents said in a statement faxed to Iran Focus. Iran Focus

London, Jul. 19 – Iranian authorities have put pressure on Iraqi officials to crack down on the main Iranian opposition group, the People’s Mojahedin Organisation of Iran (PMOI), dissidents said in a statement faxed to Iran Focus.

The state-run news agency ISNA reported on Wednesday that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki had announced that the Iraqi government was contemplating plans to expel members of the PMOI from Iraq.

“The Iraqi Prime Minister announced today that the country was working to end the presence of the terrorist hypocrites grouplet on Iraq’s territory”, ISNA said.

“It was decided to limit the actions of this group and confine them to Camp Ashraf, north of Iraq, and prevent their contacts with ministers and government agencies”, ISNA quoted al-Maliki as saying.

The National Council of Resistance of Iran, a broad coalition of Iranian exiles and groups which includes the PMOI, said in a statement, “Any action against the PMOI represents nothing but the demands and wishes of the theocracy ruling Iran that have been conveyed to the Iraqi Prime Minister by discredited “security agencies.” These are the very same organs that are widely known to have been infiltrated by the Iranian regime and have played the greatest role in advancing the regime’s objectives in Iraq in the past year”.

The NCRI said the Iranian Resistance had previously provided authorities with a list of names of more than 30,000 agents in Iraq who were on Tehran’s payroll.

Among the restrictions is a clampdown on the rights of the PMOI to distribute statements in Iraq, al-Maliki said. In June, the group announced that some 5.2 million Iraqis had signed a petition demanding an end to Iranian meddling in Iraq and supporting the right of PMOI members to political asylum in the country.

Since 2004, PMOI personnel in Iraq have been recognised as protected persons under the Fourth Geneva Convention. “The Multi-National Force-Iraq has the responsibility to protect them. Violating these rights would be considered a war crime”, the statement said.

The opposition movement also said that since some time ago PMOI members’ fuel and food rations have been suspended and on Tuesday the water supply for Camp Ashraf residents was cut off.

It called on international agencies and officials to immediately intervene to confront the “pressures by the mullahs’ evil regime against the PMOI and the Iraqi government”.